Sunday, December 13, 2009

Guys, I hate flying. The concept of clear-air turbulence drives me nuts! That's AIR for heaven's sake, why should it be as bumpy as an old country road? Something does not add here, in my mind.

Yes, mind. Mind is a crazy thing (well, at least mine is). So, I really need to work hard to take it from disaster-thoughts and plant sometwhat more useful instead of those. What can be better than beading (especially, combined with a shot of single malt times two)? Last month I had to fly twice, and I was working on the central part of this necklace. This is why it got so big - I had to pass total of 4 hours (landings and take-offs not included). It, actually, has helped my anxiety! And resulted in a necklace, which is good too ;)

After giving it a good look, it reminded me of antique brass mirrors, hence the name.

Connecting the massive central part to the rope was a bit of a challenge. Finally, I came up with a solution that you can see here:

But then there was quite a conflict between the weight of the pendant and a webb-like connection, which I was not really feeling like re-making (yeah, lazy!). So, I figured that the fringe would ballance that up. And knowing myself it was highly improbable that it was going to be an ordinary fringe.

So, a huge pendant born in scare for flying, turned out as a odd necklace. ;)You never know...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Being a Superior Scribbler is not all that simple - feel the pressure to scribble! ;)

Here is my latest creation - Vanilla Ice-cream. I have been running around with this idea for a very long time.

Firstly, my husband bought me several great agate slices in his last trip to USA. They are quite specific stones due to their shape, and I was not realy sure what was the best way to deal with them. I was convinced that it was going to be a freeform piece. Then I saw a very interesting freeform necklace by Nataliya Pechenkina from biser.info. It gave me some good ideas, but I really did my best not to repeat anything and to create a really unique design.

Secondly, I really wanted to incorporate Swarovski beads in a freeform design based on pre-mixed seed beads. Auntiesbeads.com has kindly helped me in realisation of this idea, they carry a good selection of various seed beads, including a broad range of mixes.Sometimes I enjoy mixing beads by myself, but sometimes it is great to have a pre-mixed "starter" to make your creativity spin. In this necklace, Au Natural, Good Earth, Moonstone and Golden Grain mixes were combined with several other Miyuki and Toho seed beads. I find multi-shape mixes perfect for making freeform.

And, finally, I just wanted to bead a white necklace for a very long time. That's the complete story of the Vanilla Ice-cream.

Disclosure: I have recieved the Swarovski chrystalls and some of the seed beads free of charge, in return for writing a honest review about the supplied products. Auntiesbeads.com has not compensated me in any way for writing this review.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Last months were quite hectic. I've made lots of beaded things, but never had a chance to blog about them. But this is a special one.

It is made for a Master student we had in our lab. Ok, here it comes - she's one of the best students I've ever had over the years. As a token of appreciation for a great job that she did with us, a colleague of mine and myself have decided to make her a present - this necklace.

Even specialists in the field will not know what it represents. And I will not give a latin name of the fungus (because this blog post would otherwise come up in all Google-searches, so un-scientific!) ;) Let's just say that the bug that we are working on is a mold, originaly found on prunes and it loves lots of sugar.

Here are some real life scientific pictures of some of its parts (published online with kind permission of the person who took them: Jan Dijksterhujs of CBS, The Netherlands). Now you know what is that white pearly stuff that is growing out of the "prune" cab ;)The bug is a pain in the head to grow - it thrives in media with LOTS of sugar. And to get it a good medium for growth, one needs to melt all that sugar. And you can guess what happens if the temperature is too high, or if you melt it for too long? Yes, it caramelizes! And you (read: your student) has to start all over again... That's the meaning of those colors in the necklace.